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SPEECHES DELIVERED AT THE 
DINNER OF THE 

North Carolina Society of 
New York 

AT THE HOTEL ASTOR 
DECEMBER 7, 1908 





SPEECHES DELIVERED AT THE 
DINNER OF THE 

North Carolina Society of 
New York 

AT THE HOTEL ASTOR 
DECEMBER 7, 1908 


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SPEECHES 


Describing Some of the Large Forces 
of Southern Progress 

Toastmaster . . Walter H. Page, Esq. 

The President of the Society 

The Railroad and the People . W. W. Finley, Esq. 

President of the Southern Railway 

The Public School and the Future, Hon. James Y. Joyner 
State Superintendent of Public Instruction of North Carolina 

Bringing Immigrants to the South, Hugh McRae, Esq. 
Of Wilmington, North Carolina 

The Negro and His Training, Dr. James H. Dillard 
Of New Orleans , President of the Jeanes Board 

Our Abiding Qualities . . Junius Parker, Esq. 

Of New York 

The Solid South . . Walter H. Page, Esq. 

Of New York 

The South and the National Government 
THE HONORABLE WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 

President-elect of the United States 


Old Plantation Melodies 

By Singers from the Hampton Institute , Virginia 








Speech of Welcome and a Toast to the 
President of the United States 

The Toastmaster: 

The North Carolina Society to-night has a pleasant experience 
of a policy of expansion and of benevolent assimilation. Our 
neighbors of other Southern societies have done us the com¬ 
pliment to swell our ranks; and distinguished gentlemen from 
every part of the country are come to our dinner as our guests 
and friends; and we are especially honored by the presence 
of the President-elect of the United States. 

To you all, gentlemen, our most hearty welcome. 

We are proud that you should make our dinner the occasion 
of the coming together of so representative and so distinguished 
a company of men of Southern birth or of Southern background. 
For every Southern State sits with us — from the State of 
Washington all the way round to Virginia in this confederacy 
of the old land’s development. 

True, most of you do only your filial duty in gathering under 
our flag and by our pines; for, whether you come from Wash¬ 
ington or Oregon or California or Montana or Texas or Missis¬ 
sippi or Alabama or Arkansas or Tennessee or Kentucky or 
Georgia or Indiana, the fathers or the grandfathers of many 
of you were North Carolinians. Your family traditions 
go back to Mecklenburg or to Alamance or to Orange or to 
Wake or to Warren or to Craven or to Chowan, and your 
ancestors lie in the old churchyards somewhere on our long 
slope. Their names and their free spirit are perpeuated by 
your kinsmen that still live there, and more than likely there 
are men in this company from the old home who bear your 
grandmothers’ maiden names. 

You are all here — come for one night of high companionship 
— and the old mother welcomes you with all her homely ten¬ 
derness, and she empties for you her cornucopia. 

Thus to-night in our gathering, as in very historic truth, 
North Carolina is much of the South and much of the West. 


5 


Turn the state on her western mountain peak, and Hatteras 
will reach clean across Ohio, as far as Detroit, beyond Chicago, 
almost to Kansas City, to the corner of Texas and beyond 
New Orleans. Or turn the state on the comer of Currituck, 
and her most western mountain peak will touch Niagara Falls 
and cut across a portion of New Hampshire and Vermont and 
reach beyond Boston. The wild geese of Currituck can fly 
to Canada sooner than to our most western mountians. 

And this is a geographical manifestation of an inward 
grace; for we are citizens of the whole Republic with a pride 
in that citizenship which has no bounds. In this broad spirit 
I ask you to drink first to the President of the United States— 
with an added pleasure because the same policy whereby 
he has caused the dry places to bloom will at last bid the 
floods of our Appalachian region to cease — 

To the President of the United States 


“America” by the orchestra 



THE TOASTMASTER, INTRODUCING MR. FINLEY: 


The gentlemen who will speak to us to-night about the 
development of our land and of our people have all earned the 
right of leadership by their own work. They are captains of 
our growth, each in his own way, and all their speeches con¬ 
verge to the upbuilding of our old home. 

There is a noble epitaph on a tomb by a roadside near 
Hendersonville, in our mountains: 

“ Here lies Solomon Jones, the Roadmaker. A true 
Patriot. He labored fifty years to leave the world better 
than he found it.” 

The roadmaker is a fundamental man, the bringer of all 
other good influences, the benefactor of the earth and of the 
race and the favorite of fame — for the Roman Emperors yet 
live in men’s regard by their roads. 

In our time, railroads are the best roads we have, and when 
every man in the South lives within ten miles of a railroad it 
will be the most prosperous part of the Union. The Southern 
Railway has as its empire of traffic the richest staple-growing 
region in the world — a stretch of continent greater than 
President Washington ruled over, extending from the Potomac 
to the Mississippi. And the Southern Railway has at its head 
a Mississippian by birth, a North westerner by training, an 
American by habit of thought and work — a great leader of 
our development. 

Gentlemen— I present Mr. Finley. 


8 


The Railroad and the People 

ADDRESS BY MR. W. W. FINLEY 

President Southern Railway Company 


In his letter inviting me to address you this evening your 
worthy president gave me to understand that he wanted me to be 
brief and to be serious. I shall be both; but if I am so brief 
as to leave you wishing for more, or so serious as to tire you, 
the responsibility rests on him. He asked me, in effect, to 
assume the role of a physician and to prescribe, from my point 
of view, such a course of living for North Carolina and our entire 
Southern section for the next twenty-five years as will assure the 
continuance of the most exuberant industrial health. 

Nature has provided our section with a strong and vigorous 
constitution. Its economic strength lies in the variety and rich¬ 
ness of its natural resources and in the agricultural, industrial, 
and commercial adaptability of its people. Formerly the 
Southern States were content with the profits which came 
from the production of raw materials. The energy and enter¬ 
prise of our people have led them to add to the profits of produc¬ 
ing raw materials the profits of manufacturing. That economic 
law which tends to concentrate manufacturing in proximity to 
supplies of raw materials is constantly working with them. 

The climatic and soil conditions of the South are so varied that 
within its limits there can be produced profitably all the agri¬ 
cultural and horticultural products of the temperate zone and 
many of those of the tropics. It is furnishing each year an 
increasing proportion of the fruits and vegetables consumed in 
the United States. These are sent to market before they meet 
Northern competition, and the Southern fruit and vegetable 
grower receives the benefit of the higher prices generally com¬ 
manded by early products. There are still standing Southern 
forests which, with proper management, can be made of great 
present profit and can be preserved as a source of wealth for 
future generations. Already other sections, which had 
exhausted the greater part of their timber resources before the 


9 


necessity for forest conservation in the United States was appre¬ 
ciated, are looking to the Southern States for timber and for 
manufactures of wood. Flowing from the wooded mountains 
of the southern Appalachian range are streams capable of 
generating millions of horse-power, not only to be used on the 
banks of the streams, but to be carried in the shape of electrical 
energy wherever it can be utilized to the best economic 
advantage. Beneath the soil of our Southland are stores of 
marble and stone for the builder, clay for the potter and brick- 
maker, and the whole range of useful and ornamental minerals. 
Marble and granite for many of the majestic buildings of the 
country are supplied by Southern quarries. First and foremost 
among the natural assets of the South is the cotton plant, which 
has been termed “the most useful plant that grows.” This 
plant gives to our section almost a monopoly in the production 
of the most widely used textile fibre in the world. It produces 
a seed from which are pressed a salad oil that compares favor¬ 
ably with the product of the Mediterranean olive groves and a 
cooking fat that has driven lard from many of our kitchens. 
The residue of the seed yields a high-class stock food and a 
valuable fertilizer. The cotton plant already provides us with 
clothing and food, and we are looking forward to the time when 
from its stalk a large proportion of the paper supply of the world 
will be made. An increased proportion of Southern-grown 
tobacco is manufactured in the South; the Southern iron and 
steel industry has already grown until it ranks next to that of 
Pittsburg, and North Carolina is steadily gaining on Michigan 
in the manufacture of furniture. Southern progress in the future 
is destined to take the direction, not only of the expansion of 
industries engaged in primary manufacturing, but also of a 
multiplication of industries which will use its primary products 
as their raw materials. Southern cotton textiles, in increasing 
quantities, will be made into articles ready for wear; Southern 
iron and steel will be made more generally in Southern establish¬ 
ments into rails, structural shapes, locomotives, machinery, and 
tools; Southern leather will be sent to other markets in the form 
of boots and shoes, harness, and belting, and the products of 
Southern sawmills will be shipped to other localities, not only 
in the form of furniture, but manufactured into the great variety 
of commodities of which wood is a raw material. 

You will see by this hasty and imperfect review of Southern 
resources and potentialities that our section has great physical 
strength and vast stores of vital energy. If it is to continue to 


10 


use its strength to the best advantage and to develop its full 
energy, its body must be nourished and its muscular fibres built 
up by the steady and unobstructed flow of the rich and nourish¬ 
ing blood of commerce through its veins and arteries. It 
behooves us, therefore, to see to it that its veins and arteries do 
not become obstructed, and that such ailments as may develop 
in them are treated by the judicious application of conservative 
and well-tried regulatory remedies which will strengthen and 
build up the entire system. 

The greatest of all the early physicians, Hippocrates, laid the 
corner-stone of medical science when he rejected the super¬ 
stitions of his age and declared his conviction that all diseases 
were subject to natural laws and should be scientifically treated 
in accordance with those laws, and that it was the duty of 
the physician to assist nature in the cure of disease. This 
Hippocratic system may well be applied in the field of politico- 
economics. As the physician insists on knowing that any 
newly proposed line of treatment is in conformity to natural 
laws of physiology and hygiene, so should we insist on knowing 
that any new doctrine as to the regulation of business is in con¬ 
formity with the laws of economics. 

Just as the members and the organs of the human body are 
so closely interrelated that the illness of one affects the entire 
body, so the many lines of business that make up the activities 
of mankind are so closely interrelated that one cannot be seri¬ 
ously deranged, or have its ability to perform its function for the 
service of humanity seriously impaired, without affecting the 
health of the entire business structure. As the health of the 
body depends, not only upon a bountiful supply of healthy blood, 
but also upon the ability of the arteries and veins to carry it, in 
proper volume, to each member and organ, so our industrial 
and commercial healthfulness depends, not only upon ample 
production of commodities that are in demand in the markets of 
the world, but also upon the existence of a transportation system 
capable of carrying the surplus products of each locality to 
other localities where they are wanted. 

Inspired by the record of past Southern achievements, we look 
forward to-night, Mr. Toastmaster, with full confidence in the 
future of the Old North State and of the entire South. We 
know the extent of our resources and the capabilities of our 
people, and we are justified in predicting a material development 
in the next twenty-five years that will even surpass the record of 
the past quarter of a century. Our fields, our forests, our mines, 


ii 


and our factories will supply an ever-increasing volume of the 
life-blood of commerce and will make increasing demands upon 
our circulatory system. To keep pace with these demands the 
capacity of that system must be enlarged. Each increase in 
Southern production must be accompanied by a corresponding 
increase in Southern transportation capacity. 

It is not a mere accident that our industrial development has 
been contemporaneous with an improvement in the transporta¬ 
tion system of the South, and with the amalgamation into 
through systems of the disjointed railway lines which had sur¬ 
vived the Civil War. Without this railway development our 
industrial progress would have been impossible. Our advan¬ 
tages of climate, of natural resources, and of the industrial adapta¬ 
bility of our people would still be lying dormant had there not 
been provided the means of placing the products of our factories 
in markets where there exist effective demands for them. As 
our industrial progress in the past has been made possible largely 
by our railways, so, in the future, the carrying capacity of our 
railways must keep pace with our industrial progress. The 
Southern States are not now so well supplied with railway facil¬ 
ities in proportion to their area and population as are some other 
sections of the country. It is the duty of those who are engaged 
in furnishing transportation in the South to provide adequate 
facilities, so far as it is within their power to do so, but they 
can only keep pace with the demands which our future progress 
will impose upon them if they are sustained by a healthy and 
constructive public opinion. 

The railway, as a corporation, has no voice in the selection 
of those who frame and administer the laws for its regulation. 
Its physical property — extending in part through sparsely 
settled sections and through wildernesses, perhaps — is the most 
defenseless property that exists. In the very nature of its 
existence, therefore, it can find safety only when, in the darkness 
of the night-watches, in times of stress and peril, and in the 
enactment of laws for its regulation, the invisible sentinel of 
public opinion stands guard over its rights and property. 

The railways of the South are its highways to the markets of 
the world. They are essential to its very existence as a progres¬ 
sive and prosperous community. Without them its develop¬ 
ment would have been confined, in large measure, to the seacoast 
and to localities reached by navigable streams. Its agricultural, 
industrial, and commercial growth can continue only if it is 
served by railways able to carry a constantly increasing volume 


of traffic. They are, in a very real sense, the veins and arteries 
of the body politic, and the interest of our section in their healthy 
expansion, and in their ability efficiently to perform their func¬ 
tion of transportation, is identical with the interest of a man in 
the healthy and unobstructed operation of his circulatory system. 

In medicine the intelligent public has been educated to an 
appreciation of the superiority of scientific treatment. We make 
no haphazard selection of a physician to treat our bodily ills. 
We want to know that the man who prescribes for us has studied 
the human body in sickness and in health, and that his system 
of treatment is founded on a knowledge of the laws of natuie 
and is supported by a record of successful cases. So, in public 
life, and as to the body politic, in a country such as ours — 
where the people, in the choice of their public servants, elect 
their own physicians, and, by the force of public opinion, often 
prescribe their own medicines — it is all important that our 
legislative physicians should be wisely chosen and that the 
policies they propose should be based on the solid ground of 
economic truth. 

Applying this principle to the regulation of railways as com¬ 
mon carriers, and also as performing the quasi-public function 
of maintaining the highways on which they operate, it is proper 
that they should be subjected to such regulation as may be 
necessary to safeguard the rights of those who use the highways 
which they provide, and that there should be special govern¬ 
mental tribunals for the adjustment of controversies which may 
grow out of their dealings with the public. 

The nature of the business of transportation is such, however, 
that, if it is to be subjected to governmental regulation without 
injurious results, it must be accomplished through the enact¬ 
ment of general laws to be applied to specific cases as they arise. 
The question of whether or not a charge for a specific service is 
exorbitant or unreasonable is one of such a nature that it can¬ 
not properly be inquired into and decided by a political conven¬ 
tion or by a legislature. A charge that may be just and reason¬ 
able for one service in a specific locality may be either 
unreasonably high or unreasonably low if applied to a different 
service, or to a similar service in a different locality. The 
determination, therefore, of questions involving the reasonable¬ 
ness of rates or alleged discriminations calls for the exercise of 
the judicial function of applying general rules of law to specific 
facts. 

In conclusion, Mr. Toastmaster, as a native of another South- 


13 


ern State and one whose business life has been almost entirely 
identified with the South, I desire to express the pleasure it has 
given me to meet, on this occasion, so many of the sons of North 
Carolina. Living as you do in this strenuous, striving North¬ 
ern city, your thoughts turn to-night to the old home, under the 
kindlier winter skies of our beautiful Southland. Between its 
cloud-capped mountains in the west and the ocean waves which 
wash its eastern shore are embraced varieties of landscape, 
of climate, and of resources that make the Old North State an 
ideal place for human habitation. It is a land of accomplish¬ 
ment and opportunity, and it is inhabited by a people who have 
shown their ability to make the most of its manifold natural 
advantages. Formerly almost exclusively an agricultural state, 
its enterprising people have proven their wide range of adapta¬ 
bility by turning from the plow to the factory, and, while still 
advancing in agriculture, placing it high in the list of the indus¬ 
trial states in our Union. Well may the members of the North 
Carolina Society of New York City predict for their state a 
glorious and prosperous future, for well I know that those who 
have remained at home will make their prediction good. 


A Toast to the Old North State 


✓ 


The Toastmaster: 

A good quality of the Southern Railway is that it is one of 
the roads that leads home; and now for a moment, O Kinsmen 
of the Old North State, let us really go home again, and indulge 
intimate memories of the people — our people — and of the 
old land — our old land. 

We can easily dream of the mild winters of our childhood, 
and of the soft cool nights and of the unsmoked sky and clear 
stars — a mellow land of singing pines and of white fields of 
fleecy opulence; and we recall the restful softness of our people’s 
speech and ways, the openness of their lives, their humor 
and their unrepressed kindliness and their closeness to the 
soil. To sit by bright evening fires with our weather-wise 
elders — men, of long memories, cheerfully indifferent to all 
whims of fortune — this is as tonic as reading the classics; 
and the memory of our kinswomen’s soft voices is a perpetual 
benediction. All these memories, O Kinsmen, take us to the 
old land which is yet one of the wholesome open spaces and 
picturesque slopes of the world. And I ask you to rise and 
affectionately drink to The Old North State 


“The Old North State” by the orchestra 


*5 


THE TOASTMASTER, INTRODUCING MR. JOYNER: 

But we have inherited not only this bounty of restful mem¬ 
ories but high duties also. And one of the highest of these 
is the task of our friend whom we now welcome, a man whose 
work touches the loneliest homes in the remotest parts of the 
land, and whose face and voice and inspiration are familiar from 
Murphy to Manteo — the most useful public servant of the 
old commonwealth, Mr. Joyner. 


16 


The Public School and the Future 

ADDRESS BY MR. J. Y. JOYNER 

State Superintendent of Public Instruction of North Carolina 

To her beloved children that have wandered away from 
the old home, North Carolina sends, through me, to-night, 
loving greetings and a message of hope. 

Her clean-blooded Anglo-Saxon children are her richest 
heritage and her greatest resource. Upon the fullest develop¬ 
ment, through proper education, of the splendid capabilities 
of these depends her future progress, prosperity, and power. 
I have thought, therefore, that the most hopeful and inspiring 
message that I could bring you to-night would be the brief 
story of the recent educational progress of the state and the 
brief forecast of what we may reasonably expect it to be in the 
near future. 

You can measure the civilization and the character of any 
people by the place a little child holds among them, by the 
sacrifices they are willing to make to give that little child a 
chance to be all that God has meant it to be. The finest chap¬ 
ter in the history of our people during the tragic days of fratri¬ 
cidal strife is one little read and little known, recording the 
devotion of North Carolina people to North Carolina childhood. 
I would have it read and known of all men that during all the 
exigencies of civil war, though the fathers in camp were ragged 
and starving, the mothers at home were enduring hardships 
such as few women ever had to bear, the children were crying 
for bread, and all our people were bearing almost unbearable 
burdens of taxation, the school fund of North Carolina, amount¬ 
ing then to about two million dollars, was never touched; the 
public schools were kept open throughout the war; and when 
Sherman’s army entered the Capitol city of Raleigh, grand old 
Calvin H. Wiley, our first Superintendent of Public Instruction, 
was in his office receiving reports from the public schools. 

North Carolina was the first Southern State to give serious 
attention to the problem of providing a system of public schools 
for the education of all her children. When the war began she 


i7 


had the best system of public education in all the South, and 
one which had attracted attention and commendation through¬ 
out the Nation. I mention these facts, not in a spirit of boast¬ 
fulness or vainglory, but as evidences of what I believe to be 
the truth which I would have the sons of North Carolina and 
others know in justification of the character of her people, that 
the tardiness of her people in providing efficient public schools 
for the education of their children has been attributable more 
to lack of means than to lack of heart or of desire or of love of 
a little child or of appreciation of the value and necessity of 
education. 

It should never be forgotten that North Carolina was com¬ 
pelled by inexorable fate to wander forty years in a wilderness 
of poverty; and that in 1890, according to the United States 
census, she was only thirty-four million dollars richer in 
taxable property than she was in i860. 

With the increased prosperity of the past decade has come a 
correspondingly rapid increase in educational progress. 

During the past five years, our people have built and equipped 
two thousand new public school houses, more than one a day 
for every day in the year, Sundays included. These houses 
have been built in accordance with plans approved by the 
State Superintendent of Public Instruction, prepared by the 
most competent architects, according to the most modern 
principles of school architecture as to convenience, beauty, 
light, ventilation, heat, and the general laws of sanitation. At 
this rate we may reasonably hope to have within the next few 
years a comfortable, modern public school house within reason¬ 
able reach of every school child of the state. 

In 1903, from the proceeds arising from the sale of swamp 
lands belonging to the State Board of Education, a permanent 
State Loan Fund for Building and Improving Public School 
Houses was established. This fund now amounts to nearly 
half a million dollars and is increasing annually at the rate of 
4 per cent, interest plus the additions from the proceeds of 
annual sales of swamp lands. One-half the cost of building 
and equipping new school houses can be lent by the State Board 
of Education to county boards of education for school districts, 
payable in ten annual instalments, at 4 per cent, annual 
interest. 

According to the official records, during the decade from 
1898 to 1908 the value of the public school property of the 
state, amounting now to four and a quarter million dollars, 


has been quadrupled; the annual expenditures for building, 
improving, and equipping school houses has been increased 
tenfold; the annual available public-school fund raised by taxa¬ 
tion, amounting now to three and a quarter millions, has been 
trebled; the funds annually raised by special taxation in special 
school districts, by a vote of the people, to supplement the funds 
available in those districts from state and county taxation 
has been quadrupled. The average school term of the rural 
districts has been increased from sixty-five days to eighty-seven 
days, and the school term in the rural special-tax districts has 
been increased to one hundred and forty days. 

During the past five years at least twelve hundred little, 
unnecessary school districts have been abolished by consolida- 
iton into larger and stronger districts with longer terms, better 
houses, more and better teachers. 

Teachers’ salaries have been increased, though not in pro¬ 
portion to the increase in salaries of those in other professions 
and callings. County supervision of schools has been greatly 
improved. The salary of the county superintendent has been 
more than doubled in the past five years; in most counties he is 
now no longer a mere clerk to the county board of education, and 
a mere examiner of teachers, but a real supervisor and director 
of the county school system, giving his entire time, thought, 
and attention to the discharge of his duties and to the cultivation 
of public sentiment for education among his people. There 
has been wonderful improvement in the classification and 
gradation of the work in the rural public schools, in the sys¬ 
tematization and correlation of it. 

The annual state appropriations for the maintenance of the 
higher state institutions of learning have been trebled in the 
past decade. The state is now supporting a State University, 
a State Normal and Industrial College for white women, three 
normal schools for white men and women, three normal and 
industrial schools for colored men and women, an Agricultural 
and Mechanical College for white men, and one for colored men 
and women. All of these institutions, as well as the excellent 
denominational colleges for white and colored men and women, 
are filled to overflowing with students and taxed to the limit 
of their capacity. Not less than three thousand five hundred 
young white men and women are enrolled in our state institutions 
of higher .learning and our first-class denominational colleges. 

The appropriations for the schools for the blind and the deaf 
and dumb of both races have been nearly doubled. 


19 


In 1900 there were but thirty school districts in the entire 
state levying special school taxes on property and polls therein, 
by vote of the people, to supplement the funds received from 
state and county for the maintenance of an an adequate system 
of public schools, and all of these were cities and large towns. 
In 1908, seven hundred and twenty-five such districts in ninety- 
one counties, ranging from one to thirty in each county, levying 
annual special school taxes of from fifteen to thirty cents on the 
hundred dollars’ valuation of property and three times those 
respective amounts on polls, were officially reported. At least 
six hundred and twenty-five of these districts are rural districts 
or districts including small villages of less than one thousand 
inhabitants. During the past five years, an average of more 
than two such districts a week have been established by vote 
of the people. 

In 1908 one-fifth of the entire school fund of the state was 
raised by local taxation in special tax school districts for the 
maintenance of better public schools in those districts. The 
funds raised by special taxation for school purposes in the 
rural districts were increased 106 per cent, in 1907 alone, with 
an additional increase of about 50 per cent, in 1908. 

Nothing could indicate more clearly the growth of public 
sentiment for public education, the determination of our people 
to make the sacrifices necessary to provide adequate educational 
facilities for their children, than this voluntary assumption, 
for the children’s sake, of an additional burden of taxation 
for school purposes. It may interest you to know that, based 
upon the total school fund and the total valuation of taxable 
property as officially reported in the respective states, North 
Carolina is raising annually for school purposes eighty-two cents 
for every hundred dollars of taxable property, Massachusetts 
forty-one cents, and New York sixty-one cents. In other words, 
North Carolina, in proportion to her wealth, is bearing twice 
as heavy a burden as Massachusetts for the education of her 
children, and one and one-third as heavy a burden as New 
York. But the assessed taxable property for each child of 
school age in Massachusetts is about ten times as great and 
that of New York about seven times as great as that of North 
Carolina. 

Under an act passed in 1901, two thousand rural school 
libraries, costing thirty dollars each, containing one hundred 
and eighty thousand volumes of the best books, selected from 
lists approved by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, 


20 


have been established. Each of these libraries can be supple¬ 
mented annually by a library costing fifteen dollars. The state 
provides one-third of the cost of these libraries and supple¬ 
mentary libraries, the county one-third, and the people of the 
school district one-third by private donation. The influence 
of these masterpieces of thought and feeling, going daily 
into hundreds of homes — many of them bookless homes — 
read by old and young, cultivating a taste for good literature, 
forming the reading habit, stimulating ambition and aspiration 
through communion and association with the greatest minds 
and souls of the ages, no man can measure. At this average 
rate of five new libraries a week, it will be possible for every 
rural school ere long to have its rural library. 

Under an act of the General Assembly of 1907, making a 
special state appropriation therefor, and requiring the county 
and districts in which they are established each to duplicate 
the amount provided by the state for their maintenance, one 
hundred and fifty-nine rural public high schools have been 
established in eighty-four counties, enrolling during the first 
year four thousand country boys and girls. Through the 
development of these schools and the establishment of others, 
high school instruction for preparation for college or for life 
ought soon to be placed within reasonable reach, at small cost, 
of every country boy and girl. 

This progress has been made in spite of scant wealth, sparse 
population, 82 per cent, of which is rural, and the burden 
of maintaining a double system of schools for the education 
of two races that must be separated forever, one of which has 
been able to contribute but little in taxation for the support 
of its schools. 

North Carolinians may move slowly; there is tar on their 
heels; but sticking qualities help to hold the ground gained 
and to prevent backward sliding in climbing mountains of 
difficulty toward peaks of duty. The ascent was steep and hard 
at first; but it will grow easier as our people draw nearer to 
the top. There shall be no backward slipping till the goal 
is reached and every North Carolina child shall be given an 
equal chance with any other child in all the world. Then shall 
it come to pass that the outside world shall speak less of the state 
as a good state to be born in and to move from to grow great 
and prosperous elsewhere, and more of it as a good state to 
remain in and to move to and grow great and prosperous 
there. 


From these evidences of our recent progress, the full story 
of which time does not permit me to tell, indicating on the part 
of our people an aroused public sentiment, a determination 
to make adequate provision for the education of their children 
as rapidly as their means will permit, a sacrifice in time, con¬ 
venience, and money, beautiful and sometimes touching to 
behold, are we not justified in predicting the rapid develop¬ 
ment of a public school system in North Carolina that shall 
be adequate to the demands of this age of universal education 
and to the stupendous task of training for citizenship and 
service, according to their various capacities, all her children, 
white and black ? 

Within the next quarter of a century or less I confidently 
expect to see within reasonable reach of every country and city 
child in the state a complete system of public education, with 
the elementary and high schools, adequately equipped with 
comfortable houses, ample grounds, and trained teachers, 
efficiently supervised by competent superintendents, maintained 
for eight or ten months a year by state, county and district 
taxation, requiring every child to secure at home in the elemen¬ 
tary school a mastery, at least, of the rudiments of learning 
that constitute the foundation of all education and of all prepara¬ 
tion for intelligent citizenship and efficient service, affording to 
every child that has the desire and the capacity opportunity to 
secure near home in county and township high schools fuller 
preparation for college or for life, through courses of study 
shaped to meet the needs and natural adaptations of all for 
literary, professional, commercial, agricultural, and industrial 
life. In the system, too, university, colleges, teacher training 
schools, agricultural, industrial, and commercial schools, ade¬ 
quately equipped and supported by the state and properly 
correlated with elementary and high schools. 

These elementary and high schools, planted in the rural 
districts within reach of the rural population, will become the 
centres of new social, intellectual, civic, industrial, and agricul¬ 
tural life, the effective means of breaking up the isolation, the 
loneliness and the colorlessness of rural life, of elevating to a 
higher plane of intelligence, labor, and service the great masses 
of the country people, and of preventing the degeneration of 
this biggest and best part of our population into an Old-World 
ignorant peasantry. Through the dissemination of intelligence 
and special training for their work, adapted to their environment, 
among the masses of our country folks, our farms will become 


more productive; our waste lands will be reclaimed; our roads 
will be improved; modem conveniences that increased wealth 
can command will be brought to the farmers’ doors; rural 
life will be made more livable. 

Such a system of schools do I foresee in the near future for 
the Old North State, extending its educational ladder, without 
a missing rung, from the doorstep of the humblest cottage in 
the loneliest rural district to the doorway of the highest univer¬ 
sity or college of the state or of the Nation. This is the lever 
that shall uplift the state and roll it in another course. 

For such a system of schools I believe the foundations, 
deep and broad, have been completed even in this decade. 
Most of the great constructive work still lies before us, but we 
shall do it in another generation. We must do it largely by 
ourselves. By sympathetic cooperation others can help us 
to help ourselves, but we cannot engraft the work of others 
upon our foundations. An effective educational system must 
ever be an organic growth; so must ours grow out of our own 
life and heart, and be shaped largely by our own needs and the 
spirit and genius of our own people, embodying in itself the best 
ideals of our past, but ever broadening to comprehend also the 
safest educational ideals of the present and of the future in all 
the world. Such is my vision of the educational and intellectual 
development of the Old North State in the next generation. 


23 


THE TOASTMASTER, INTRODUCING MR. MACRAE: 

After all, the vast possibilities of the South will not be worked 
out till we have a far denser population. We need more men 
to work it out; and he who, against real disadvantages and 
against prejudices that are an even greater hindrance, brings 
strong and thrifty newcomers to our soil and successfully plants 
them, is a builder of a more prosperous order and deserves 
lasting honor. Such a man is Mr. MacRae, of Wilmington, 
whose helpful experience points the way to a new economic era. 
By his scientific work waste places are becoming the homes of 
thrifty men. I introduce Mr. MacRae. 


24 


Bringing Immigrants to the South 

ADDRESS BY MR. HUGH MACRAE 

The movement of immigrants to North Carolina is as yet 
in its initial stages and of such small proportions that it would 
hardly be entitled to your consideration this evening on any 
other basis than that outlined by your President in his kind 
letter of invitation, in which he said: “At this dinner we wish 
to have a programme outlined for North Carolina’s growth and 
development for the next twenty-five or fifty years — from 
every point of view, industrial, educational, etc.” 

I believe that all great progressive movements must go slowly. 
Each generation must build for future generations; and the 
fact that this programme was to be made for twenty-five or 
fifty years made me feel that even a small beginning in the 
direction of turning the great tide of immigration into the South 
would have its proper place. 

It will be conceded by careful observers that there is no 
quicker way to increase the wealth of a country than to add 
to its industrious and thrifty population. The demonstration 
is before us in the Northern States, and especially is this true 
in the Western States where millions of sturdy immigrants, 
English, Scotch, Irish, Germans, French Canadians, Swedes, 
Hungarians, Poles, Finns, and Italians have in succession been 
distributed as wealth producers, each in turn lifting those who 
went before to higher levels of prosperity and wealth. Great 
agricultural development, great industries, and great cities have 
been the direct result of this ever-increasing army of producers 
of wealth. 

The native American has always shown sufficient versatility 
and adaptability to rise to higher levels and remain on the sur¬ 
face of this rising tide of development. 

No section which has experienced the benefits of immigration 
would part with its new population. Remove the Germans 
from the territory of St. Louis, the Swedes from the region 
around St. Paul and Minneapolis, the Poles and Hungarians 

25 


from Pittsburg, and the Greeks, Italians, and Slavonic races 
from New England, and there would be a general calamity. 

The South has stood aloof from immigration, partly from 
conservatism, but largely from the fact that immigration to 
the South has been, under the conditions heretofore prevailing, 
almost impossible. During the forty years following the war, 
when for lack of financial strength the South’s energies were 
dormant and only slowly recovering from the effects of the com¬ 
plete exhaustion of the struggle, there was more labor available 
on account of the large Negro population than it was possible 
to use. For this reason wages remained low and in turn all 
industries languished because of the low earning power of labor 
and the low purchasing power of wages. 

The sturdy immigrants naturally went where there was least 
competition and highest wages. The millions first established 
drew other millions of their countrymen, so that great railroads 
and steamship companies were built up by this movement of 
immigration, and in turn directed their energies to securing 
immigrants for their territory. It was easy to keep the immi¬ 
grant from turning Southward, as there was no demand for 
him there: he had neither relatives nor ties of friendship in the 
South; and on the maps of the steamship and railroad agents 
the southern country was designated as the “Country of the 
Black Man.” Even now we find immigrants who fear canni¬ 
balism in the South. 

The South’s growth, though unassisted by immigration, has 
been marvelous. During the last four or five years it has 
become apparent that the growth of wealth and industry has 
outrun the supply of labor. The mills and mines rob the farms 
of their labor; agriculture becomes almost impossible to the 
man who has to hire help, and yet the mills are often forced 
to run short time. 

As the tendency of the South will be to develop even more 
rapidly, we face a crisis through a labor famine. Laborers 
cannot be brought immediately into the South. The wage 
scale has not yet reached a level which will compete with the 
North and West; and to quickly pay this scale would be ruinous. 
It seems, therefore, that the logical way to increase the South’s 
power of producing wealth is to bring in an agricultural popula¬ 
tion to supply the places of those who will be taken by the 
industries from the farms. 

The ownership of land appeals strongly to the hardy, indus¬ 
trious peasants of Europe who have eked out an existence on 

26 


farms, but have never been able to accumulate sufficient with 
which to buy land. 

In our attempt to start colonization we have reached the 
broad conclusion that any immigrant coming from northern 
Italy, or northern Europe, who has lived on the land and who 
will devote himself to agriculture, will become a good citizen. 
Agriculture acts as a great filter which quickly separates the 
scum of the European cities from those who have led the rugged, 
wholesome life of farmers. 

The South need have no fear of getting too many immigrants; 
the competition is still too great, and the obstacles are still 
sufficient to make it a slow and difficult process. The countries 
of Europe are fully alive to the value of these people to them, 
and are placing every obstacle in the way of their coming. If 
we have any fear, it should be lest we have let pass the golden 
opportunity. 

For a number of years it has been a wish of mine to make 
the attempt to secure immigration, but it has only been within 
the past four years that this could take practical shape; and 
up to the present time the work has been largely experimental. 
We have established five colonies, with Italians at St. Helena, 
Hungarians and Hollanders at Castle Hayne, Poles at Marathon, 
Germans at Newberlin, and Hollanders and Poles at Artesia. 
Americans and other nationalities are located also at Castle 
Hayne and at Artesia. 

I shall refer especially to the Italian colony, as that is the 
oldest — three years old — and is the largest and most successful. 

First, a word about the preliminary work. Having noted 
the success of farmers along the coastal region, from New 
Jersey through Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, 
and Georgia, to Florida, we became convinced that there was 
a vast area of fertile land available for profitable agriculture, 
which only needed proper drainage. The country is quite level, 
and the rainfall is from sixty to seventy inches per annum. 
We secured the assistance of Government experts to make pre¬ 
liminary soil surveys of the section around Wilmington, which 
section has the peculiar advantage of being south of the line 
where the ground is subject to freezing in winter, and at the 
same time of being near to the great northern markets. 

From the knowledge obtained from the Government soil 
experts other men were trained as experts, and surveys and 
maps were made of more than six hundred square miles of 
land. The reports of the soil experts exceeded our expectations. 

27 


Options were taken on large areas which were best suited for 
the purpose of colonization. After the titles were examined 
and accepted by competent attorneys, corps of engineers 
were put in the field to make surveys, drainage plans, and lay¬ 
outs for farming communities and town sites. This required 
about two years’ work of a large force of men. 

In the meantime, agents were sent abroad to study the 
sources of immigration, and the best manner of directing the 
immigrants to the desired locality. Demonstration farms were 
started so that the first arrivals could be shown the best methods 
under the new conditions. The ditching, clearing, and fencing 
were first done by Negro labor, and later by the colonists as 
they arrived. A good superintendent, who was a skilled agri¬ 
culturist, was placed in charge of each colony, even when it 
contained only two or three families. As the cost of preparing 
for and securing the first arrivals was enormous, it seemed wise 
to nurse them with the greatest care. 

The Italian colony was started with seven families from 
northern Italy. They were chosen from a district in the 
province of Venetia, and it may be interesting to know that 
our agent, upon investigation, found from the records that 
no serious crime had been committed in this district for more 
than four hundred years. To this can be added the statement 
that at St. Helena in three years there has not been a single 
lawless act. I have never seen any people more contented and 
happy. They are frugal and industrious, and compare satis¬ 
factorily in every way with the native white population. 

We have found that colonies do not succeed without families. 
The women and children are necessary to a sound development. 
We.established the custom of showing appreciation of this fact 
by giving a present of five dollars in gold to each bride in the 
colony, and a gift of ten dollars in gold for each child brought 
by the storks to St. Helena. We have no standard by which 
to gauge the efficiency of these bounties, but can say that the 
expenditure on that account has become quite an item in our 
budget. 

St. Helena (named in honor of the Queen of Italy) was 
started in a pine forest. The pine wood as soon as it was cut 
from the land was purchased from the colonists, and each man 
was employed one half of his time working for the company, 
ditching, fencing, and building roads. The women and children 
work all of their time in preparing the land for the first crops, 
the men giving half of their time to doing the heavy, rough 

28 


work. At St. Helena there have been sold sixty-six farms of 
ten acres each. There are about three hundred people in the 
colony, and already there are about two hundred and fifty acres 
under cultivation, and two hundred acres additional cleared 
and ready for the plow. During the past season sufficient 
strawberries were planted which, in addition to those already 
bearing, will bring the total in strawberries up to one hundred 
acres. There are forty acres in cotton, fifteen acres in com, 
fifteen acres in potatoes, and eighty acres in miscellaneous 
vegetables. It is estimated that next spring, during the straw¬ 
berry season, the Italians at St. Helena will ship each day more 
than one solid refrigerator carload of strawberries to the northern 
markets, and under market conditions as good as those of the 
past year this crop will bring more than $10,000 in cash into 
the colony. 

Our experimental work with colonies has necessarily been 
done at great expense, and we have made the usual mistakes 
which may be expected in pioneer work. But from these we 
have reached some conclusions. 

We believe that the North Italians are particularly desirable 
for North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, because 
they are used to a climate similar to ours. They have been 
healthy and vigorous, and St. Helena has practically been free 
from sickness for three years. As to the immigration of North 
Italians, the South has no cause to fear the descendants of the 
people who were the builders of Rome and Venice, and of 
Florence and Milan. 

It will be interesting in this connection to quote from a letter 
written by Senator Tillman, of South Carolina, after he visited 
Italy, as follows: 

“Having myself been very pronounced in expressing the 
idea that Italians were undesirable immigrants for South 
Carolina, a sense of justice compels mo to say that, having 
watched the people of Italy with that very question in 
view, I still feel that the people of Naples and those of 
Southern Italy whom I saw at Salerno and Paestum 
are not the type we would like to have. From Rome 
northward the impression made on me is entirely favoiable, 
and I feel sure that if we could get any of the northern 
Italians into the Southern States they would make good 
citizens and help in every way to assist the white race 
in solving the race problem.” 


29 


To the immigrants we sell land, houses, and mules on long 
time; we also furnish those who are without means with seeds 
and fertilizers, and give them instructions as to planting and 
marketing. 

The Italians of St. Helena are desirous of becoming American 
citizens; their children are attending the public schools, and 
the men and women are anxious to learn the English language. 
They take great pride in their community, and show a spirit 
of cooperation in many ways. They have organized a brass 
band of fifteen pieces, and on holidays and feast days they 
find great satisfaction in playing alternately the favorite airs 
of Italy and America. 

We find that Hollanders will also prove very desirable 
colonists. They are among the most skilled agriculturists in 
the world. In one locality, from which the Hollanders at Castle 
Hayne have come, there are six hundied people making a 
living, by intensive farming, on a tract of land which has a 
total area of fifty acres. 

We feel certain that the race problem of the South will be 
either solved by immigration, or will be so greatly minimized 
that its solution will not be a matter of supreme importance. 

It seems clear that the development of the South cannot be 
continued in the same ratio as for the past few years, except 
through an increase in its agricultural population. As has 
been shown in the West, this will not reduce the price of labor, 
nor will it adversely affect the value of farm products. The 
failure of the Wittekind experiment, and the failure of the 
attempt to bring English spinners to Greensboro, demonstrated 
that the immigrants should be directed to agriculture, and from 
this source the other demands for labor may later be supplied. 
The first immigrants to be brought to the South cannot be 
broadcasted. They must be treated with great care, just as 
one would do with rare plants being brought to a new locality. 

From the standpoint of the upbuilding of the State of North 
Carolina steps should be taken to secure a State Department of 
Immigration which would be under the supervision of intelligent, 
earnest, and effective workers, and the work of this department 
should be mapped out along practical lines. For instance, it 
is useless to attempt at present to get a great movement of 
English or Germans, when the era of immigration from those 
countries has long since passed. The work should be done 
along the lines of least resistance and without prejudice; and 
as soon as North Carolina begins to develop as it should, we 


30 


can feel assured that such English and Germans as can be 
attracted will come. 

The United States Department of Agriculture has shown a 
willingness to cooperate actively with the State Department 
in this work. Much can be done by furnishing expert instruc¬ 
tion in agriculture to the new settlers, and the various depart¬ 
ments of the Government will undoubtedly assist in solving 
this great problem for the South. 


3 * 



THE TOASTMASTER, INTRODUCING DR. DILLARD: 


If all the energy that has been spent in discussing the relation 
of the races had been spent in training the children of each race 
to useful work and to thrifty habits, the Negroes would now 
have fewer shortcomings to discuss and white men would have 
less time to discuss them. A good rule of life is this— when 
you feel an overpowering impulse to indulge in this discussion, 
which is now more than a century old and somewhat 
threadbare, spend your energy in helping to train one child — 
white or black — to some useful work, and you will serve your 
country better. 

Dr. Dillard, I think, never had time to discuss the race 
problem; for instead of that he is giving his life to prevent a 
race problem from appearing. 

He is a Southern man, thorough-going and thoroughbred. 
I do not know whether he fits the condition of the old formula 

— but I think he does—that a Southerner is a man who yet 
believes the Bible, will not work for money, reads Scott’s novels, 
eats sweet potatoes, and votes the Democratic ticket. But I do 
know that he is one of our most distinguished educators, a 
man of Southern birth, rearing, training, residence, and work 

— the former dean of Tulane University, a much-honored 
citizen of New Orleans, who has taken the presidency of the 
Jeanes Board for the right training of Negro children. And 
he is directing the work of this Board, of which Mr. Taft is 
a member, toward the first clear and helpful understanding 
of this problem — an understanding, moreover, of each race 
by the other, and he has the confidence of both. There is no. 
more consecrated man than he, nor a man in the South or 
elsewhere who better serves his country. 

It is in appreciation of him and of Mr. Taft and of their 
interest in the right training and the right understanding of 
the race that we owe the presence of Major Moton and the 
Hampton singers of the old plantation melodies — this great 
contribution of the Negro to our music which Hampton In¬ 
stitute in Virginia is preserving in its purity and full volume as 
a priceless inheritance. 


33 


For the Society, I thank them for these unchanged songs of 
the old home and of the old days; and they have our gratitude 
for saving them from corruption. 

If we were deprived of the Uncle Remus stories and of the 
plantation melodies we had as well be New Englanders or 
Manhattan Dutch! 

And I now have the honor to introduce a man whose labor 
and whose spirit I hold in as high esteem as I hold the labor 
and the spirit of any man living; for, being one of us, he is 
finding the way — not merely looking for it, but finding it — 
whereby our democracy shall successfully stand its hardest 
test, by training two different races of men to mutual helpful¬ 
ness on a basis of mutual respect and of justice in both economic 
and civic life — the law administered for each alike. 

Gentlemen, Dr. Dillard. 


34 


The Negro and His Training 

ADDRESS BY DR. J. H. DILLARD 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: 

Your committee, in arranging this discussion of questions 
bearing particularly on the South, could not well omit the 
subject which has been assigned to me. As Southern men, 
desiring the welfare of our Southern region, and willing to meet 
any serious problem face to face, we would not wish to omit a 
subject which so vitally touches the South’s progress and 
prosperity. I could well wish that the discussion might have 
fallen into abler hands than mine. 

Let us recall at once the fact that the Negro is the great 
labor factor in the South, especially in the rural districts. If 
his condition be considered merely from a productive view¬ 
point, his ability and efficiency are seen to be a dominant con¬ 
sideration in that development of the resources of the South 
which we know to be still in its beginnings. 

Secondly, let us face the fact that these millions of Negroes 
are a part of our population, that so far as human knowledge 
can see they are to be a permanent part of our population, 
and that it is of vital importance not only to them but to us 
what sort of a population they are destined to become. 

Thirdly, let us recall the thought that from every view¬ 
point we would prefer, for ourselves and for them, that this 
large element in our population should be industrious, thrifty, 
law abiding, and well disposed, rather than idle, shiftless, 
lawless and ill disposed. 

Now the Negro is not an exception to a great rule — the 
great rule, namely, that proper training and education promote 
thrift and industry, and consequently peace and law 
abidingness. The testimony as to intelligent Negro neigh¬ 
borhoods in the South, and the actual evidence of individual 
instances, show that these people, go with this great rule in 
proving the ratio of industry to intelligence. Furthermore, 
there is no trouble in the South from the Negro who is disposed 

35 


to be thrifty and industrious. It is the ignorant and idle Negro, 
as it is the ignorant and idle man everywhere, who is the cause 
of trouble. 

The intelligent white men of the South know these things — 
know that any people trained to industry and usefulness are 
more productive and law abiding than masses of ignorance. 
It is only the thoughtless man of reckless speech who speaks 
against providing proper education and training for our Negro 
population. Every one of our Southern States is committed 
to the idea of educating the Negro, and there is not a county 
in the whole South which is not spending something in this 
cause. 

On their part the Negroes are ready to receive every oppor¬ 
tunity offered to them, and more than this, where no oppor¬ 
tunity is offered, they are making their own opportunity. By 
their own contributions they are building school houses and 
lengthening school terms. In fact, there is something almost 
pathetic in the desire of the Negroes for education, and for 
the education that will be most useful to them. In studying 
this question during the past year, I have been somewhat sur¬ 
prised to find how generally the Negroes want industrial 
education for their race. Hardly with an exception will it 
be found that the schools established by the Negroes themselves 
have the word “Industrial” in their names. These schools 
have been able to do little effective work in this direction, but 
the name points to the desire and purpose. 

This brings us to the thought that the public money which 
is being spent in Negro education ought to be more wisely 
used than at present. Too many of our officials are careless of 
the teachers they employ and of what these teachers teach. 
There is tremendous need of better supervision and of a 
genuine revolution in the school routine. More than 80 
per cent, of the Negroes in the South are rural, and the rural 
schools provided for these for a few months in the year are 
almost valueless in the training that is attempted. There is 
no effort to train in the needs of rural life and industries, and 
it is this practical education which the Negroes themselves 
are ready to welcome. 

Happily there are some signs of an awakening in this direc¬ 
tion. We may venture to predict that the South will not much 
longer fail to insist that the money spent in Negro education 
shall be spent effectively. And when this is fairly accomplished 
we shall see that it will pay to spend more in Negro education, 

36 


that it will pay to make everywhere a fair distribution of the 
public funds, so that the darkest and densest sections will 
be reached. 

We must realize that the training of the masses of Negroes 
depends upon the public schools. The efforts of philanthropy 
can never do the work of public education of the masses. 
Philanthropy can help in great measure, but it cannot supplant 
the great work of public education supported by public funds. 
In this connection let me speak briefly of the philanthropic 
Fund with which I am connected. 

Something over a year ago a Quaker lady of Philadelphia, 
Miss Anna T. Jeanes, gave a million dollars for Negro rural 
schools. A board for carrying out the trust was finally 
organized in February of the present year. Up to the present 
time there has been no public announcement of the definite 
manner in which the interest on this money is to be spent, 
but I shall take the liberty here of indicating very briefly what 
seems to be our wisest policy. So far as our means will allow, 
we hope, by capable teachers, to impress upon the Negroes in 
the open country the need of thrift, and industry, and right 
living; and most of all we shall aim to improve the effective¬ 
ness of the rural schools by introducing industrial training and 
trying to make the school a centre of influence upon the 
neighborhood. We propose to pay the salaries of as many 
trained teachers as possible, who are to supplement, not sup¬ 
plant, the teaching that is provided by the state and county and 
private contributions. The amount at our disposal cannot 
reach far in actual work, but the effort will be to use it in such 
a way as to beget an influence that will spread. The county 
superintendents in all parts of the South where the Fund has 
become known are welcoming and asking for such teachers, 
and in many instances offering inducements for the introduction 
of this elementary industrial work. 

The unanimity with which our Southern superintendents 
are seeing the importance of this work, and are giving it their 
cooperation and support, has been to me a most significant 
indication of the fact that our thoughtful Southern men are 
earnestly trying to meet and solve the immediate problems of 
the race question. Certainly there is no more immediate need 
than the education of the masses of country Negroes in the 
lines of industrial usefulness. To this end, when we look at 
this whole problem from the highest moral standpoint, as well 
as from the standpoint of utility and the public safety and 

37 


welfare, we can see that it is a question of importance for us 
Southern white men that we shall not fail in doing our part 
by these people in the way of justice and helpfulness. We have 
the power, and with the power we have a responsibility. That 
the great body of thoughtful and intelligent white men in the 
South are more and more facing the problem and the responsi¬ 
bility there is no doubt. We may not know what the future 
of any great world-problem may be — human eyes cannot see 
far — but we know that it can never be wrong to do justly and 
to love mercy and to help those who may need guidance and 
support. 


38 





























































THE TOASTMASTER, INTRODUCING MR. PARKER: 

The large forces that make for progress in the South or 
anywhere else are the abiding qualities of the people — those 
fundamental traits that make them what they are—traits of our 
own people, that our fellow-countryman, Mr. Junius Parker, of 
Alamance, exemplifies, and that our fellow-member, Mr. Junius 
Parker, of New York, has put to such good account in his 
perilous eminence as guide, philosopher, and friend of the largest 
corporation that North Carolina has given birth to. To you, 
whether in Alamance or in New York, he needs no introduction 
— Mr. Parker. 


x 


40 




Our Abiding Qualities 

ADDRESS BY MR. JUNIUS PARKER 

Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

As “the child is father to the man,” so the people that 
are are the ancestors of the people that are to be. There will 
be a development in the next twenty-five years in North Caro¬ 
lina, but it will be a development and not a new birth. In all 
development, whether it be of plant, person, or people, the 
overwhelmingly important thing is the basic, inherited character. 
It was in recognition of this that the ever-wise, as well as the 
ever-delightful, Dr. Holmes, in his advice to young men, put 
first in point of importance a well-selected father and grand¬ 
father. I want to speak to-night of some of the characteristics 
of North Carolina and North Carolina folks that will, I trust, 
persist through all their development. 

The very first of these characteristics is a certain modesty 
that vaunteth not itself, and whose existence makes it hard for 
a North Carolinian to speak of our other good qualities. This 
modesty is perhaps not strikingly in evidence on occasions 
such as this, but it exists nevertheless. Some one recently, 
referring to us and our two neighbors Virginia and South Caro¬ 
lina, spoke of North Carolina as a “valley of humility between 
two mountains of conceit.” “To be, rather than to seem” 
is the motto of our flag, and in all our history it has been charac¬ 
teristic of our people. 

I do not intend to lay emphasis on that history, and I cer¬ 
tainly have no purpose to dwell for many moments on the 
tragedy of the war, but yet a brief reference to the war is 
necessary to emphasize another of our characteristics. In one 
thing North Carolina, not least among the Southern States, 
has given an illustration of the capacities of American man¬ 
hood and American stamina that is unique and interesting. 
It has been given to our Southland alone among the sections 
of our country to exhibit dignity in defeat. In the Revolution¬ 
ary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Spanish 


41 


War, there were no defeated Americans. If they had been the 
only wars of our history we would have had instances of the 
greatness of Americans only in the circumstance of victory. 
There is another glory and another greatness that is the portion 
of those only who fight valiantly — and in vain. We of the 
South have that, and in no spirit of bitterness or regret, but 
with gladness and pride, we should recall to ourselves and teach 
our children that our fathers fought bravely, as became Ameri¬ 
cans, and when the fight was over laid aside their gray clothes 

— with the splash of red that glorified them — and cheerfully 
set about the duties of the defeated — the building of the waste 
places, the education of the children, the achievement of 
material prosperity that must precede all other development. 
To no other section of our land has it been given to show the 
heroic qualities the South has shown since the war, and none 
of the South has shown these qualities more conspicuously, 
and yet more quietly, than North Carolina. 

Besides this modesty, and this quality of dignified effective¬ 
ness under whatever difficulty and misfortune, there is a certain 
intensity and unselfishness of conviction that seem to me to 
obtain in North Carolina more than in any other section I know. 
I don’t say it is a quality that makes for individual material 
success, but it is a quality that makes for a larger manhood 
and a nobler womanhood. The maxim “Mind your own 
business,” in the sense in which it is sometimes spoken, is the 
spirit of Cain when he asked “Am I my brother’s keeper:'” 
I heard of an incident the other day that illustrates this maxim 
of “Mind your own business” run to its modern, selfish seed 

— an inability or disinclination to form an opinion on any 
other basis than self interest, and extreme caution — for rea¬ 
sons of expediency — in the expression of any conviction at 
all. A teacher had told his class the history of Nero, and had 
dwelt eloquently on the wickedness that has given Nero his 
fame — his torture of early Christians, his fondness for fiddling, 
bad enough under any circumstances and peculiarly so while 
Rome was burning, and his other atrocities. In order to test 
the impression he had made, he asked one little boy: “Now, 
what sort of a man do you think Nero was i'” The little fellow 
sat silent. “Well, Johnnie,” said the teacher, “just tell in 
your own words your impression of Nero.” Johnnie looked 
solemn, but noncommittal, and shook his head. “Well,” he 
said, “Nero never done nuthin’ to me.” That boy was not 
a North Carolinian, for down there I have heard men who had 


42 


nothing to exchange for specie grow excited in discussing the 
resumption of specie payment; I have heard those who neither 
bought nor sold get warm over a protective tariff or free trade; 
and pious souls whose calling and election were sure beyond 
peradventure get personal and denunciatory in an argument 
about original sin. Without intending the slightest discourtesy 
to our distinguished guest, the President-elect of the United 
States, I can yet assure him that he and his distinguished rival 
in the recent campaign were the cause of more vigorous and 
downright, though perfectly respectful, profanity in North 
Carolina than all the selfish transactions from one end of the 
state to the other. 

In our development and improvement, let us hope that 
expediency may never take the place of conviction among our 
people, and that tea-table dilettantism will not supplant their 
rugged earnestness and intensity. 

But let me say a word that is not of self praise: Don’t we 
North Carolinians sometimes carry earnestness to the point 
of intolerance? Don’t we sometimes lack the saving grace of 
humor in our zeal for truth, as we see it ? 

To illustrate: I have read for many years a North Carolina 
newspaper that is certainly and properly of great influence 
throughout the state, and whose influence is constantly on the 
side of the moral as against the immoral on questions that 
have those two sides. I have read in that paper of a good many 
political speeches, and my feeling for those who made Republican 
speeches has gotten to be a mixture of pity and contempt. One 
reading the accounts of those speeches would conclude that 
the speakers owed their being at large at all to the fact that 
there are more asylums for the violently insane than for idiots 
and imbeciles. In the meantime, Democratic candidates for 
Governor, Congress, the state senate and Register of Deeds 
have been making speeches worthy of comparison with Web¬ 
ster’s Reply to Haynes, or Sheridan’s Denunciation of Warren 
Hastings. Last spring there was a campaign on the subject 
of state-wide prohibition. The question was non-partisan, 
and some Republicans who had theretofore made such dreary 
failures in party contests, went on the stump in favor of pro¬ 
hibition. I read the account of those speeches; and lo, they 
were masterpieces — overpowering in their logic, resistless in 
their eloquence! 

Now it is, of course, true that earnestness of conviction tends 
toward intolerance, but yet it ought to be possible to have one 
and not the other. In the first place, it is the fair thing — the 

43 


honest thing — to be just to the other side; and after all, fair¬ 
ness is moral and unfairness is distinctly immoral. In the 
second place, the earnestness that is unyielding is admirable, 
but the earnestness that is unfair and intolerant, while by no 
means humorous, yet often provokes to smiles. What a vast 
difference there is between being humorous and being ridiculous, 
and yet both lead to smiles. 

Let us add to our virtue of intense conviction “sweetness 
and light” if we can, but let us at all events hold to reality and 
downrightness of opinion. The civilization that perse¬ 
cuted Dissenters was not altogether lovely, but it was healthier 
and more wholesome than the civilization that admitted all 
gods alike to the temple. 

There are other qualities characteristic of our state and its 
people akin to this. We value money and material things, 
but we do not make our politics, our religion, or our social life 
subserve our making of money, or our advancement in material 
things. We choose our churches and parties because we have 
an acquired or inherited preference for their doctrines and 
creeds, our friends for their congeniality, our wives for their 
charm, and none of them for our own business advantage. 

Another quality for whose persistency we should pray is 
a freedom from fads. Of course, some of us believe in the 
“Initiative and Referendum,” but the belief is not a very vital 
influence in our lives, even for the few of us who know what 
“Initiative and Referendum” means. In the essential things 
of life, and in most of its incidents, we walk the way of our 
fathers, and I believe it is well. To be sure, I know very little 
about either, but to me the theology of the old Hawfields 
Church down in North Carolina seems better than the Emmanuel 
Movement,and I know that “Larboard Watch” and the “Gypsy 
Countess” are more to be desired — in music and in morals 
— than the “ Merry Widow Waltz” or the “Salome Dance.” 

These, then, are some of the qualities I speak of: A courtesy 
that knows no thought of thrift; a kindliness and charity that 
seeks neither to benefit nor to advertise itself; convictions and 
opinions earnest and sincere, and that have their bases in the 
mind or in an honest prejudice, and bear no relation to stock- 
market commitments or other investment; tolerance to all 
men and to all views, but a tolerance accompanying seriousness 
and not the result of indifference; a holding on to the old and 
tried until the new has proved itself not only the new, but the 
better. May these things be characteristic of our dear state 
twenty-five years hence and forever! 

44 


The Solid South 

ADDRESS BY MR. WALTER H. PAGE 

IN INTRODUCING THE HONORABLE WILLIAM H. TAFT 

At the Dinner of the North Carolina Society of 
New York, at the Hotel Astor, December 7. 1908 

Here, if nowhere else, we leave political parties and pref¬ 
erences alone. But here, as everywhere else, we are patriotic 
men; and we North Carolinians have as our background a 
community that from the first showed a singularly independent 
temper. A freedom of opinion is our heritage. We once 
drove a Colonial Governor who disputed our freedom of 
political action to the safer shelter of the Colony of New York; 
and throughout our history we have shown a sort of passion 
for independent action, in spite of occasional eclipses; and 
that same temper shows itself now. We are, in fact, never sure 
that we are right till half our neighbors have proved that we 
are wrong. 

We are, therefore, and have long been, much distressed by 
the political solidity of the states of Maine, Vermont, New 
Hampshire and Pennsylvania; and we wish that it were broken 
— not for the sake of the Democratic party nor for the sake 
of the Republican party (for the breach would benefit each 
alike) but for the sake of greater freedom of political action 
by our unfortunate fellow citizens who dwell there. Where 
one party has too long and secure power it becomes intolerant 
and the other party falls into contempt. Thus these states 
have become stagnant or corrupt. For the sake of free political 
action we wish that their political solidity might be broken, 
so that the whole conscience and character of their people 
might find full political expression. What constructive influ¬ 
ence have they, or have they in recent years had, in the nation’s 
thought and political progress? 

For the same reasons we have taken an especial pleasure 
in the recent breaking up of Ohio, Minnesota, and Indiana — 
where on the same day presidential electors of one party and 
governors of the other party were chosen; for this breaking 

45 


asunder of party dominance makes both parties tolerant and 
careful, helping them both and showing the utmost freedom 
of political action. And these states contribute much to our 
political life. 

By the same token we rush in where Texas and Virginia fear 
to tread, and we shall welcome the impending and inevitable 
breaking of the Solid South (perhaps we shall lead it), not 
for the sake of the Democratic party nor for the sake of the 
Republican party (although it would help each party equally), 
but for the sake of open-mindedness and of freedom of political 
action, so that all men there may walk by thought and not by 
formulas, and act by convictions and not by traditions. Where- 
ever one party by long power breeds intolerance, the other 
falls into contempt. And what constructive influence have 
the Southern States in our larger political life? From some of 
them, where parties have fallen low, we have seen men go to 
one national convention as a mere unthinking personal follow¬ 
ing of a candidate even then clad in garments of twofold defeat; 
and to the conventions of the other party we have sometimes 
seen office-holding shepherds with their crooks drive their 
mottled flocks to market. We are tired of this political ineffi¬ 
ciency, this long isolation, and these continued scandals; and 
we are tired of the conditions that produce them. If parties 
are to be instruments of civilized government, the conditions that 
produce such scandals must cease. We must have in the South 
a Democratic party of tolerance and a Republican party of 
character; and neither party must be ranged on lines of race. 

We aspire to a higher part in the Republic than can be played 
by men of closed minds or of unthinking habits or by organized 
ignorance. We aspire again to a share in the constructive work 
of the government in these stirring days of great tasks at home 
and growing influence abroad. 

I am leaving party politics severely alone, but I am speaking 
to a national and patriotic theme. A Republican Administra¬ 
tion or a Democratic Administration is a passing incident in 
our national history. Parties themselves shift and wane. 
And any party’s supremacy is of little moment in comparison 
with the isolation of a large part of the Union from its proper 
political influence. 

The manhood and the energy and the ambition of Southern 
men now find effective political expression through neither 
party. The South, therefore, neither contributes to the Nation’s 
political thought and influence nor receives stimulation from 

46 


the Nation’s thought and influence. Its real patriotism counts 
for nothing — is smothered dumb under party systems that 
have become crimes against the character and the intelligence 
of the people. The South gives nothing and receives nothing 
from the increasing national political achievement of every de¬ 
cade. Politically it is yet a province; and we are tired of this 
barren seclusion. Men who prefer complaint to achieve¬ 
ment may regard this as treason: let them make the most of 
it. We prefer a higher station in the Union than New Hamp¬ 
shire and Vermont and Pennsylvania and Arkansas hold. 

From the first our commonwealth conspicuously stood for 
something greater than any party, something that antedates 
all our parties, that spirit of independence in political judgment 
and action which brought the old thirteen states into being 
and made the Republic possible. And that spirit is not dead 
yet. 

If it cannot regain its old-time influence through one party, 
it will regain it through another. 

We are the descendants of men who fashioned parties in 
their beginning; and, if need be, we can refashion them. For 
the aim of government is not to preserve parties but to give range 
to free individual action in a democracy. And it is in this 
spirit of national aspiration that we welcome our distinguished 
guest of honor — a man now placed above parties, and too 
just to regard the Republic by sections, our best equipped 
citizen for the highest office in the world. 

To the President-elect: May his administration mark the 
return oj Southern character and sincerity to its old-time part 
in the constructive work of government and the end forever oj 
political isolation from the achievements and the glory oj the 
Union l 


47 



The South and the National 
Government 


ADDRESS BY 

THE HONORABLE WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 

PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES 

North Carolina presents an admirable type of the present 
conditions in the South. It offers, therefore, a suitable subject 
for the discussion planned for this evening, and I count it a 
privilege to be present to hear it. One, in any degree responsible 
for the government and welfare of the whole country at this 
time in her history, must take an especial interest in the trend 
of public opinion and the conditions, material and political, 
of the South. 

The laws of the United States have equal operation from the 
Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico. Congress has 
representatives from every part of the country, including the 
South, whose votes axe recorded upon national legislation. 
Railroads do not break bulk between North and South. Inter¬ 
state commerce goes on unvexed between the one and the 
other. The Post-office department distributes its mail with 
impartiality on each side of Mason’s and Dixon’s Line. Pros¬ 
perity in the North is accompanied by prosperity in the South, 
and a halt in the one means a halt in the other. Northern 
people meet Southern people, and find them friendly and 
charming and full of graceful and grateful companionship. 

What is it that sets the South apart and takes from the 
Southern people the responsibilities which the members of a 
republic ought to share in respect to the conduct of the National 
Government? Why is it that what is done at Washington 
seems to be the work of the North and the West, and not of 
the South? Should this state of affairs continue? These are 
the questions that force themselves on those of us concerned 
with the Government and who are most anxious to have a 


49 


solid, united country, of whose will the course of the Govern¬ 
ment shall be an intelligent interpretation and expression. 

We can answer these questions as the historian would, and 
we can explain the situation as it is; but I don’t think we 
can justify or excuse a continuance of it. Looking back into 
the past, of course, the explanation of the difference between 
the South and the other two sections was in the institution of 
slavery. It is of no purpose to point out that early in the 
history of the country the North was as responsible for bringing 
slaves here as the South. We are not concerned with 
whose fault it was that there was such an institution as slavery. 
Nor are we concerned with the probability that, had the 
Northerners been interested in slaves, they would have viewed 
the institution exactly as the Southerners viewed it and would 
have fought to defend it because as sacred as the institution 
of private property itself. It is sufficient to say, as I think 
we all now realize, that the institution of slavery was a bad 
thing and that it is a good thing to have got rid of it. It 
does n’t help in the slightest degree in the present day to stir 
up the embers of the controversy of the past by attempting to 
fix blame on one part of the country or the other, in respect 
to an institution which has gone, and happily gone, on the 
one hand, or in respect to the consequences of that institution 
which we still have with us, on the other. These consequences 
we are to recognize as a condition and a fact, and a problem 
for solution rather than as an occasion for crimination or 
recrimination. 

Over the question of the extension of slavery the Civil War 
came, and that contest developed a heroism on both sides, 
in the people from the North and the people from the South, 
that evokes the admiration of all Americans for American 
courage, self-sacrifice, and patriotism. But when slavery was 
abolished by the war the excision of the cancer left a wound 
that must necessarily be a long time in healing. Nearly 5,000,000 
slaves were freed; but 5 per cent, of them could read or write; 
a much smaller percentage were skilled laborers. They were 
but as children in meeting the stern responsibilities of life 
as free men. As such they had to be absorbed into and 
adjusted to our civilization. It was a radical change, full 
of discouragement and obstacles. Their rights were declared 
by the war Amendments, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and 
Fifteenth. The one established their freedom; the second their 
citizenship and their rights to pursue happiness and hold 

50 


property; and the third their right not to be discriminated 
against in their political privileges on account of their color or 
previous condition of servitude. 

I am not going to rehearse the painful history of reconstruc¬ 
tion, or what followed it. I come at once to the present con¬ 
dition of things, stated from a constitutional and political 
standpoint. And that is this: That in all the Southern States 
it is possible, by election laws prescribing proper qualifications 
for the suffrage, which square with the Fifteenth Amendment 
and which shall be equally administered as between the black 
and white races, to prevent entirely the possibility of a domina¬ 
tion of Southern state, county, or municipal governments 
by an ignorant electorate, white or black. It is further true 
that the sooner such laws, when adopted, are applied with exact 
equality and justice to the two races, the better for the moral 
tone of state and community concerned. Negroes should be 
given an opportunity equally with whites, by education and 
thrift, to meet the requirements of eligibility which the State 
Legislatures in their wisdom shall lay down in order to secure 
the safe exercise of the electoral franchise. The Negro should 
ask nothing other than an equal chance to qualify himself for 
the franchise, and when that is granted by law, and not 
denied by executive discrimination, he has nothing to com¬ 
plain of. 

The proposal to repeal the Fifteenth Amendment is utterly 
impracticable and should be relegated to the limbo of forgotten 
issues. It is very certain that any party founded on the proposi¬ 
tion would utterly fail in a national canvass. What we are 
considering is something practical, something that means 
attainable progress. It seems to me to follow, therefore, 
that there is, or ought to be, a common ground upon 
which we can all stand in respect to the race question 
in the South, and its political bearing, that takes away any 
justification for maintaining the continued solidity of the 
South to prevent the so-called Negro domination. The fear 
that in some way or other a social equality between the races 
shall be enforced by law or brought about by political measures 
really has no foundation except in the imagination of those who 
fear such a result. The Federal Government has nothing to 
do with social equality. The war amendments do not declare 
in favor of social equality. All that the law or Constitution 
attempt to secure is equality of opportunity before the law and 
in the pursuit of happiness, and in the enjoyment of life, liberty, 

5i 


and property. Social equality is something that grows out of 
voluntary concessions by the individuals forming society. 

With the elimination of the race question, can we say that 
there are removed all the reasons why the people of the South 
are reluctant to give up their political solidarity and divide them¬ 
selves on party lines in accordance with their economic and 
political views? No. There are other reasons, perhaps only 
reasons of sentiment, but with the Southern people, who are 
a high-strung, sensitive, and outspoken people, considerations 
of sentiment are frequently quite as strong as those of some 
political or economic character. In the first place it is now 
nearly forty years since the South acquired its political solidarity, 
and the intensity of feeling by which it was maintained, and 
the ostracism and social proscription imposed on those white 
Southerners who did not sympathize with the necessity for such 
solidarity, could not but make lasting impression and create 
a permanent bias that would naturally outlast the reason 
for its original existence. The trials of the reconstruction 
period, the heat of the political controversies with the Repub¬ 
lican party, all naturally, during the forty years, implanted 
so deep a feeling in the Southern Democratic breast that a 
mere change of the conditions under which this feeling was 
engendered could not at once remove it. The Southern people 
are a homogeneous people; they preserve their traditions; 
they are of the purest American stock; and the faith of the 
father is handed down to the son, even after the cause of it has 
ceased, almost as a sacred legacy. 

Again, for a long time succeeding the war, the South con¬ 
tinued poor. Its development was much slower than that of 
the rest of the country. Prosperity seemed to be Northern 
prosperity, not Southern. And, in such a time, the trials of life 
of the present only accentuated the greater trials of the past, 
and reminiscences of the dreadful sufferings and privations of 
the war were present on every hand, and feelings that the 
controversy had given rise to, remained with an intensity that 
hardly seemed to be dimmed by passing time. 

But times change, and men change with them in any com¬ 
munity, however fixed its thoughts or habits, and many circum¬ 
stances have blessed us with their influence in this matter. 

The growth of the South since 1890 has been marvelous. 
The manufacturing capital in 1880 was $250,000,000, 
in 1890, $650,000,000, in 1900, $1,150,000,000 and in 

1908, $2,100,000,000, while the value of the manufactures 


5 2 


increased from $450,000,000, in 1880 to $900,000,000 in 1890, 
to $1,450,000,000 in 1900, and to $2,600,000,000, in 1908. 
The farm products in 1880 were $660,000,000, in 1890 were 
$770,000,000, in 1900, $1,270,000,000, in 1908 $2,220,000,000. 
The exports from the South in 1880 were $260,000,000, 
in 1890 $306,000,000, in 1900, $484,000,000, and in 1908, 
$648,000,000. 

In this marvelous growth the manufactures of the South 
now exceed the agricultural products, and thus a complete 
change has come over the character of her industries. The 
South has become rich, and only the surface of her wealth 
has been scratched. Her growth has exceeded that of the rest of 
the country, and she is now in every way sharing in its prosperity. 

Again, the Democratic party has not preserved inviolate its 
traditional doctrines as to state’s rights and other issues, and 
has for the time adopted new doctrines of possibly doubtful 
economic truth and wisdom. Southern men, adhering to 
the party and the name, find themselves, through the influence 
of tradition and the fear of a restoration of conditions which 
are now impossible, supporting a platform and candidate whose 
political and economic theories they distrust. Under these 
conditions there was in the last campaign, and there is to-day 
throughout the South, among many of its most intelligent 
citizens, an impatience, a nervousness, and a restlessness in 
voting for one ticket and rejoicing in the success of another. 

Now, I am not one of those who are disposed to criticize or 
emphasize the inconsistency of the position in which these 
gentlemen find themselves. I believe it would be wiser if all 
who sympathize with one party and its principles were to vote 
its ticket, but I can readily understand the weight and inertia 
of the tradition and the social considerations that make them 
hesitate. I believe that the movement away from political 
solidity has started, and ought to be encouraged, and I think 
one way to encourage it is to have the South understand that 
the attitude of the North and the Republican party toward 
it is not one of hostility or criticism or opposition, political 
or otherwise; that they believe in the maintenance of the 
Fifteenth Amendment; but that, as already explained, they 
do not deem that amendment to be inconsistent with the South’s 
obtaining and maintaining what it regards as its political 
safety from domination of an ignorant electorate; that the North 
yearns for closer association with the South; that its citizens 
deprecate that reserve on the subject of politics which so long 

53 


has been maintained in the otherwise delightful social relations 
between Southerners and Northerners as they are more and 
more frequently thrown together. 

In welcoming to a change of party affiliation many Southern¬ 
ers who have been Democrats, we are brought face to face with 
a delicate situation which we can only meet with frankness and 
justice. In our anxiety to bring the Democratic Southerner 
into new political relations we should have and can have no 
desire to pass by or ignore the comparatively few white South¬ 
erners who from principle have consistently stood for our views 
in the South when it cost them social ostracism and a loss of 
all prestige. Nor can we sympathize with an effort to exclude 
from the support of Republicanism in the South or to read 
out of the party those colored voters who by their education 
and thrift have made themselves eligible to exercise the 
electoral franchise. 

We believe that the solution of the race question in the South 
is largely a matter of industrial and thorough education. We 
believe that the best friend that the Southern Negro can have 
is the Southern white man, and that the growing interest which 
the Southern white man is taking in the development of the 
Negro is one of the most encouraging reasons for believing the 
problem is capable of solution. The hope of the Southern 
Negro is in teaching him how to be a good farmer, how to be 
a good mechanic; in teaching him how to make his home 
attractive and how to live more comfortably and according to 
the rules of health and morality. 

Some Southerners who have given expression to their thoughts 
seem to think that the only solution of the Negro question is 
his migration to Africa, but to me such a proposition is utterly 
fatuous. The Negro is essential to the South in order that it may 
have proper labor. An attempt of Negroes to migrate from one 
state to another not many years ago led to open violence at 
white instigation to prevent it. More than this, the Negroes 
have now reached 9,000,000 in number. Their ancestors 
were brought here against their will. They have no country 
but this. They know no flag but ours. They wish to live 
under it, and are willing to die for it. They are Americans. 
They are part of our people and are entitled to our every 
effort to make them worthy of their responsibilities as free men 
and as citizens. 

The success of the experiments which have been made with 
them on a large scale in giving them the benefit of thorough 

54 


primary and industrial education, justifies and requires the 
extension of this system as far as possible to reach them all. 

The proposition to increase the supply of labor in the South 
by emigration from Europe, it seems to me, instead of being 
inimical to the cause of the Negro, will aid him. As the indus¬ 
tries of the South continue to grow in the marvelous ratio already 
shown, the demand for labor must increase. The presence of 
the Southern community of white European labor from the south¬ 
ern part of Europe will have, I am hopeful, the same effect 
that it has had upon Negro labor on the Isthmus of Panama. It 
has introduced a spirit of emulation or competition, so that 
to-day the tropical Negroes of the West Indies do much better 
work for us in the canal construction since we brought over Span¬ 
ish, Italian, and Greek laborers. 

Ultimately, of course, the burden of Negro education must 
fall on the Southern people and on Southern property owners. 
Private charity and munificence, except by way of furnishing an 
example and a model, can do comparatively little in this direc¬ 
tion. It may take some time to hasten the movement for the 
most generous public appropriations for the education of the 
Negro, but the truth that in the uplifting of the Negro lies the 
welfare of the South is forcing itself on the far-sighted of the 
Southern leaders. Primary and industrial education for 
the masses, higher education for the leaders of the Negro race, 
for their professional men, their clergymen, their physicians, 
their lawyers, and their teachers, will make up a system 
under wdiich their improvement, which statistics show to have 
been most noteworthy in the last forty years, will continue at 
the same rate. 

On the whole, then, the best public opinion of the North and 
the best public opinion of the South seem to be coming together 
in respect to all the economic and political questions growing 
out of present race conditions. 

The attitude of the candidate and the platform of the Demo¬ 
cratic Party in the last election made this campaign a most 
favorable one to bring home to the Southern people for serious 
consideration the query why they should still adhere to political 
solidity in the South. It may be that four years hence the 
candidate and platform of the Democratic Party will more 
approve themselves to the South and to the intelligent men of 
the South. Under these conditions there may seem to be 
a retrograde step, and the South continue solid, but I venture to 
think that the movement now begun will grow, slowly at first, 


55 


MAY 8 1SIQ9 


but ultimately so as to extend the practical political arena for 
the discussion of party issues into all the Southern States. 

The recent election has made it probable that I shall become 
more or less responsible for the policy of the next Presidential 
Administration, and I improve this opportunity to say that 
nothing would give me greater pride, because nothing would give 
me more claim to the gratitude of my fellow-citizens, than if I 
could so direct that policy in respect to the Southern States as 
to convince its intelligent citizens of the desire of the Administra¬ 
tion to aid them in working out satisfactorily the serious prob¬ 
lems before them and of bringing them and their Northern 
fellow-citizens closer and closer in sympathy and point of 
view. During the last decade, in common with all lovers of our 
country, I have watched with delight and thanksgiving the 
bond of union between the two sections grow firmer. I pray 
that it may be given to me to strengthen this movement, to 
obliterate all sectional lines, and leave nothing of difference 
between the North and the South, save a friendly emulation 
for the benefit of our common country. 










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